Luke Perry
Actor Luke Perry discusses his new film The Beat Beneath My Feet and the state of indie cinema.
by Joanna Orland
Swapping his famous old zip code for a London-based post code, actor Luke Perry stars in the charming British indie film The Beat Beneath My Feet. Filming in the UK is nothing new for Luke who spent time in London studios on the set of The Fifth Element, but with The Beat Beneath My Feet, the actor saw a new side to the city. “It was great to be, you know, right out in the street getting a good look. You can’t beat those rooftops,” he says.
Luke is no stranger to British productions, having grown up watching many British TV programmes and finding himself more empathetic to British stories. “It’s one of those things where you know, clearly the film community of England isn’t as large of one as the sort of big machine that Hollywood is. And so I feel they always pick better stories to tell,” he explains. “The English movies to me are – they’re more interesting stories, they’re character-driven, they’re about things I find easier to care about.”
As much as Luke is a fan of British cinema, for him, it was his character’s arc that drew him to The Beat Beneath My Feet. “There was something about the character, you know, he had this horrible thing happen in his life and he was both emotionally and physically messed up from it, and it’s been a while since I had played anybody who was sort of set back that far at the beginning. And if written well, it’s always a good place to start because you have a lot of work to do, and you can take the guy from point A to point B, hopefully. And the farther apart those two are, the better,” he says.
In the film, Luke plays former rockstar Max Stone who has faked his own death to lead a quieter life in South London. Starring alongside newcomer Nicholas Galitzine as troubled teenager Tom, the story becomes about friendship and using the power of music to heal. “I don’t play guitar, I never could play guitar, the little tiny bit you see me plunk in the movie is the absolute extent of my guitar playing, but I find it fascinating,” says Luke.
Luke’s main passion clearly is and always has been acting rather than music. “I just always wanted to be an actor and that’s the simple answer. I don’t know how that is or why, I just thought it would be something that would be good to do,” he explains. And working in independent cinema is clearly a strong draw for the star as storytelling is at the forefront. “That’s sort of the holy grail of independent film – is finding a great little story and telling it well. And that’s satisfying.”
When I asked the actor for one word to describe himself, after some umming and awwing, he declared, “boring.” After stating that I’d not heard that one before, he elaborates, “that’s ’cause people really don’t want to be that honest about it, but I was trying to just drop down to that, you know, base level primordial honesty – who am I really. I’m just boring.”
The anything but boring The Beat Beneath My Feet is in UK cinemas May 12th, 2015 as part of Picturehouses Discover Tuesdays.
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Our review of The Beat Beneath My Feet.
Our interview with The Beat Beneath My Feet director John Williams, writer Michael Mueller, and star Nicholas Galitzine.
